Construction of towers for support of various items has been practiced for many years. Various towers of various materials, including wooden, steel, and, more recently, concrete, have been provided to support, for example, electrical transmission lines. In like manner, wind driven apparatus including windmills and wind-driven power generators in various forms and designed for many purposes (including for example pumping of water from wells as well as, more recently, generation of electrical power) have also been developed.
Various systems and methods are known in the tower construction and support arts for erecting tower structures. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,945,107 to Houck discloses a process for erecting a vertical rising mast. U.S. Pat. No. 6,614,125 to Willis et al. discloses a method and means for mounting a wind turbine on a tower. U.S. Pat. No. 7,877,934 to Livingston et al. discloses a lifting system and apparatus for constructing wind turbine towers. U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2010/0281819 to Thompson discloses a slip formed concrete wind turbine tower. U.S. Pat. No. 2,036,771 to Pfistershammer discloses a tubular pole. U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,787 to Milbright discloses a pole construction having a lower steel section and an upper wooden section. U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,058 to Foust et al. discloses a multiple-part pole. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0006541 to Seidel discloses a tower foundation. Further examples of erection methods and apparatus are disclosed in Zavitz et al. (U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2009/0307998), Zavitz et al. (U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2009/0308006), and Knox et al. (U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2009/0308019).
The subject matter of each of the herein-referenced published patent-related documents is fully incorporated herein by reference, and for all purposes.
Some known tower structures are relatively expensive and time consuming to erect. For example, the cost of the materials for molding certain tower structure designs formed from concrete may be relatively significant. Further, because such known concrete tower structures generally require significant time and labor to erect, certain systems and methods for erecting the tower structures similarly may be relatively slow and often cumbersome.
Additionally, as the size and weight of tower structure designs continue to increase, suitable structural reinforcement of such tower structures is required. It may thus be generally desirable that reinforcement members are included in various structural components that are capable of additionally reinforcing neighboring structural components.
Accordingly, improved methods and apparatus for assembling tower structures are desired in the art. In particular, methods and apparatus that facilitate efficient and structurally sound tower base structure assemblies would be advantageous.